Sun-Wind and Trico that were not!

Fished Bald Eagle Thursday and even though it was to be sunny and clear the valley fog was dense the temp. was only 56, just great for a Sept. morning. Took two rods in order to hit some of the very deep holes with a bead head PT and a dry rod to fish caddis & Trico's. Nothing home in the deep holes on nymphs but the darn small rainbows were every where and I mean everywhere, they are not just located in one small area heck they were upstream 500 yards, so much for the hatchery dump theory. The bow's ate tan caddis (soft hackles fished by Sherwin) an Iris pattern and a bubble back dry, it did not matter they just eat. Started to see some Trico's as the sky was clearing and I was sure we would have a great spinner fall, Sherwin reported that he saw a huge cloud down by the RT. 80 bridge. But as they say it was not to be, the wind came up and the leaves covered the surface, the Trico's either got blown away or moved downstream to the wooded cover out of the wind, it would have been like finding a needle in a haystack, the day was a good one with a ton of small fish landed but only 3 browns were among them. Most of the truly big fish here do not feed in the high skies and it must have a great hatch to get them up, next cloudy shitty day I'm there with big meat patterns!
  The attached video will show the average size of the rainbows!!!!

Paralep's again

Fished Penns on Tuesday and again found most of the trout mid morning in the soft seams just taking Paralep spinners (#20 dark olive spent wing ), you could just look down a seam and spot the fish taking them, yes there was some fish taking tan caddis and you could spot them fast. All you had to do is find a seam and line your fly floating downstream to take the spinner sipping guys. The caddis taking fish were different at least 75% of them missed the fly the first time and they were dead drifting? If a fish missed your fly just pick it off the water and hit them on the head ASAP, it worked to some degree but not every time, the caddis guys were just in one of those moods? Before I fished I stood on the foot bridge below Coburn and watched an eagle slowly fly down stream over me and then head back up stream and land in a dead tree just below me but on my way in I almost hit one on the road as I came around a corner coming in from Milheim, I guess it was looking for road kill? According to the locals this mature pair have had "2" offspring and all are doing very well, never saw that 40 years ago!
   Give Penns a try and remember to have those #20 spinners in you box just in cast you see them on the water.
  For you guys who do not know what Paralep's are we call them summer blue quills and on Big Fishing Creek they never seem to fall when your there.

Numbers Games

A few posts ago I made mention of how many small rainbows that I caught in Bald Eagle and one of my friends some what made fun of me counting, well he just fished there on Friday and his total was 47. He took all his fish on soft hackle wets, his total could have been greater if he had stayed longer but a State TU meeting was at hand and time was running short. It's not the number that you catch but this fishery is noting short of wonderful, small rainbows are everywhere and I have not had any good explanations of where they come from, one source tells us it's a hatchery dump but that does not make sense, they have been there for years and their size never seems to increase? At the next Spring Creek TU meeting I'll ask the membership for their insight then maybe we can get some answers. In the mean time go give it a try and see for yourself what I'm talking about. Just below the Milesburg bridge it's all small browns then the rainbows will show up aprox. 50 yards below that, as the stream goes more East the number of rainbows seem to increase to about 1-2 miles below Curtin Bridge, oh yea there are some very large browns that seem to like to eat the rainbows and these guys are not everywhere but they are there no less. Just to take 8+ small rainbows from one small seam makes you smile, it's all about enjoyment in the outdoors, go experience it, see the Eagles and all the other birds that make this place their home no less the 13 miles where 100,000 people watch the Lion's play football!

How To

The attached video shows how to get young people interested in our sport, get them excited about going fishing, make it an event and make the trip to a farm pond that is loaded with Bluegill's both large and small. Our Granddaughter and I have been watching trout and other fishing video's for the last year and in that time she has become very interested in going, make them want to go do not just make them go, make it their fun time. We fished in our goldfish pond without a hook and did not catch any then we went to the Spring Creek TU family picnic and tried Spring Creek again without a hook and to get her to really want to fish. She was with us for 6 days and we planned the fishing adventure for Saturday night, I checked with the land owner and he said "any time you want to come please do so", we purchased some bobber's, circle hooks and of course "bait" butter worms. after a few lessons we cast into the pond and it did not take long for her first fish, then 4 more were landed before it was more interesting to walk after the ducks then throw stones into the pond with Grandma but when we left she said "I got my wish for a little fish and I want to go again". Next time we will try a fly rod with some small poppers- she's hooked for life!